Blogging has brought a new dimension to my life where I can pen my thoughts, pent up feelings, fear, pain without any fear of remorse; where I am, at times, alone but Never Really alone in blogsphere. A place that I can almost call, "Home" where I can just blog away about anything that touches my heart strings. However do remember the recipes I upload are what I have learnt and the notes are my personal notes and the remarks are my own opinion.

Total Pageviews

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Wao writing about this, brings me down the road where I meet so many, like me, who wanted to learn everything and I really mean everything possible in the field of BAKING and Cooking, and who subsequently through the passage of time became my very good and close friends. Friends who even went an extra mile. I have one very good and close friend and before the festivities of Christmas and CNY she will make a bee line to a shop that was way too far my radar and buy alot of stuff there, things like green pea which she knows that I want also. She not only buys the stuff for me, without the need for me to ask her to process it for me, she will process for mereally fine like ground almonds and then pass it to me. Thank you Rosie, I really do love you so much.

Sorry for digressing but I find that somethings it is good to inject a little story/info to give a breath of "fresh air". Many of us love eating Mee Yoke at open street stall and we will be sweating in the hot blistering sun either to eat there or tau pau. Now I teach you how to make it yourself in the comfort of your own kitchen together with the sambal to go along with it. So let's get on with it.

Do this step first. Blend the shallots and belacan then mix to the Chilli Boh. Heat 5 Tabsp oil in wok & fry till fragrant about 10 minutes. Cool it completely. Do not add any salt or sugar as it will then spoil the flavour of the soup. Presumably this sambal cannot be kept in the fridge too long as it does not have any preservatives.

Heat 1 Tabsp oil in a wok & fry 1/2 Tabsp of the prepared Chilli Boh & the 300 gm prawn meat for a Short While till prawn meat is Cooked. Remove the prawns only onto bowl. The *liquid put this in the stork [this gives the stock some more Colour & Sweetness.

Once the stock has come to a boil, lower down the fire to medium low & simmer for 30 minutes. Then remove the ribs, yoke ngan/far yoke, slice the yoke ngan & prawn shell & add in "B" & simmer on medium low fire for another 10 - 15 minutes.Most important, this stock CANNOT be boiled for more than 45 minutes as then your soup will be cloudy & You should Never use Chicken Bones for this stock When doing the stock start with high heat then lower to medium when simmering. The veg and mee of course you blanch. You would thank me after doing this as this is a keeper too and for this, I have to thank the Chef profusely :).

Friday, February 25, 2011

A lot of us love to eat Salt Fish Pickle as it is very appertising, sometimes when no one is coming back for dinner and I feel lazy just to cook for myself, which I am sure is a feeling most wives feel :) I just fry a "runny" sunny side up egg as I love the yolk to be runny and not firm :) and just eat the egg with this acar and hot rice and I feel satisfied with just these two as they do jell together. This is something very easy to prepare. The trick here is not to eat on the day you made it as the flavour will only infuse after a day or so.

Made this Salt Fish Pickle again. I made a slight modification & increased the water. I used 114 ml water + 34 gm Assam Jawa as I wanted it to have slightly more liquid when cooking same. I also measured the Assam Jawa to 34 gm.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

So just for an update my Simple but yummy Malaysian Salad, with all its simpilicity, has become my No.1 Hit and has overridden my First Blog on my Passion of Baking, which took so much of my time and effort to do and which has been the No.1 hit from the time I started this blog. 9.3.2011.

And I say wao again. I uploaded my Simple but yummy Malaysian Salad mid last month and I had so many hits just this week for that and it is becoming my third best overall hit. It is now on par with my signature Banana Rum Cheese cake which I uploaded last year and I wouldnt be surprised by the end of today or probably sooner, it would overtake the placing of the Banana Rum Cheese cake because there must be alot of Malaysians overseas who are homesick for Malaysian food and hope you do this recipe, just to have make a simple comfort food :) Thank you everyone and for those who are yet to see that; welcome and thanks for dropping bye. Till my next post, xoxo, Ophelia. 25.2.2011 time 5 pm

So I was not wrong in saying that by the end of today, it is now 9.30 p.m., the nite is not over yet and my Simple but Yummy Malaysian Salad has overtaken my Banana Rum Cheese cake and has now become the 2nd highest spot on my blog leaving my Banana Rum Cheese cake trailing 3rd place. Yay!!!

Add in the marinated chicken, curry leaves, big onions and stir for a minute, then add in water [slightly above the level of the chicken] increase the fire to high and bring it to a boil. Once it starts boiling, reduce the fire to medium and let it simmer for 20 minutes till meat is cooked. Taste and check for seasoning.

Tips:-

(a) Ingredients "A" and "B" are blended separately and fried as detailed above, as you first want all
the aroma from "A" to come out and then only you fry "B". I am a "celop" Nyonya i.e. married
into a Nyonya family and learnt all the ropes from my late mother in law;

(b) Before you add in the curry leaves [leave them on the stems] squash them hard in your palms to
release the full potential of its power :). Further, when you add curry leaves in the beginning, the
aroma will not be as strong as when you add it somewhere towards the middle of cooking. I learnt this tip from a reknown Indian Chef.

(c) In my years of learning baking and cooking, I note down all that I observed as I always like to
reproduce what I learnt thus, if you have been following my blog, you will see that the recipes are
quite detailed as I add in my observations as well as in alot of the cases, the recipes are
sometimes quite brief and if I want to share my recipes, it is All or not share at all :)

Prepare the stock first. Put everything together in a pot and bring it to a boil and once it's boilding reduce fire to low medium and simmer for 1 - 2 hours. Then you strain and remove impurities.

The rule of thumb is whenever we put any vegetables to boil in the stock, if we intend to boil and then simmer the stock for long hours then we should cut the vegetables into chunky and, if possible, uniform size but if we intend to simmer for lesser than an hour, the size of the vegetables should considerably be smaller :) *If you dont want to make this chicken stock, you can use 500 ml water.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Most Malaysians, love eating Laksa whether Nyonya Laksa or Curry Laksa Most of us have grown up eating this either at street stalls/market or at home lovingly prepared by our grandmother, mum or mother in law and it was like a staple food for us. My late Mother in law is a Peranakan and a fabulous cook to boot. It was a real pity I didnt get to learn this from her however, my next best resort was to learn this as this is one of my better half's favourite and then to modify it to suit his taste bud and one of his penchant was, he loved to have his bowl of hot, steaming laksa, temptingly red in appearance though not necessarily to be firery hot/pedas so I would "lovingly" remove the seeds from the chillies but retain the membrane. Just as a point of interest, if you were to remove the seeds; remember not to remove the casing sticking to the seeds as the heat comes from, not only from the chilli seeds, but also from the casing; so we are told at class :)

Wash then soak the dried prawns in hot water for 15 minutes. Pound/blend the dried prawns separately. Split this into 2 equal parts; one to mix in the blended rempah & the other to fry in the oil to get the oil fragrant.

Pound the Galanga/Lengkuas, Lemon Grass/Serai, Fresh Tumeric/Kunyit, Buah Keras slightly first as these 4 are quite tough and hard to get them blended finely.

Add 1 portion of the finely pounded dried prawns to the blended rempah.

Heat the oil in a pot. When hot throw in the other half portion of the blended dried prawns & stir & fry short while till fragrant.

Add in the blended rempah & fry till oil separates about 10 minutes.

Add in the chicken, daun kesom, bunga kantan stir for a while then add in the water & bring it to a gentle boil for 15 minutes.

Reduce fire to medium heat add in the prawns, sugar [opt], salt & Santan & simmer for 10 minutes [fire is medium as 1. you dont want to over cook the prawns and 2. the Santan will curdle easily if fire is big and you will get a "biji biji" texture in the gravy :) ]

Notes:- Prepare the ingredients for the Garnish and then place them in individual bowls and on a platter. When I went for the class, the Chef placed all these individual bowls in a large platter and of course, when I came back, I had to do that too so hubby gamely took me, after all, all this is for him too, to a shop which specialise in selling all things and they supplied all these stuff to hotels too; so you see if they are too expensive then of course, it is off the budget then I will go down the road to another smaller shops where the things are cheaper but their range of things are smaller :(

Notes:-

(a) When I learnt this the dried prawns were added together with all the ingredients in "A" and
blended together. I prefer to blend separately then split into two; put one portion into the blended rempah and then fry the other portion in the hot oil. My whole kitchen smelt so lovely :)

(b) The original recipe called for the prawns to be steamed. I preferred to put them in the gravy to be boiled so that all the sweetness will be in the laksa.

Lastly if you are interested in the sambal belachan that I learn, here it is, you will see why I like it, shortly.

Ingredients for Sambal Belacan

10 Red Chillies, remove seeds
4 Chilli Padi
1 heaped tablesp Belacan [we were told no need to toast as
all these will be cooked after pounding] but I toasted
anyway as I feel more fragrant

Blend both the chillies and Belacan till fine. Put them in a small pot; liquid and all, and cook till liquid vapourise about 3 minutes. Then add in 1/2 Tabsp oil & cook for a further 2 - 3 minutes. Add a little sugar if you want.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Again I learnt this from a young Chef on 21.4.2001 who subsequently became a very close and good friend. You may be wondering about the date, you see when it comes to dates and recording the comments of my family, I will, without fail, write them on the recipe itself to help me remember when I learnt same, what my family loves to eat especially when it is food for the dinner table and whenever I twig them a little to suit our tummy cos it is very easy then for me to reproduce the dish which I twigged otherwise when I do cook it again, I would most likely get the comment from my better half that, "It does not taste the same" as he is very astute and largely I record, date them whatever, is because of the training I had when I used to work in a law firm to record stuff!! This Szechuan Sauce can be doubled or tripled & then stored in the fridge and the flavours will then develop more but bear in mind, Do Not keep them too long in the fridge as there are no perservatives. The recipes in my blog are things that I learnt over more than 2 decades and I am not a Chef by profession and the comments mentioned are my personal comments and observations during class. Ophelia

Black Fungus - You need a net weight of 50 gm after they have been soaked approximately about 2 long pieces. Sorry :( as it is very easy to just agak agak but then you wouldnt get the right proportion!!! This was what we were taught and I am always someone who loves to make sure that, even in cooking, there should Always be consistency and shouldnt be a case of hit and run ie today good, tomorrow too sour etc.

Cut the turnips with a knife into long stripes [as alot of water would ooze if you shred].

Cut the chicken meat and black fungus into long strips.

Heat some oil in a wok. Stir fry the meat. Then add in the turnips & black fungus.

Meantime fry the garlic with a little oil. Add the sauce & bring to boil. Check for taste. Stir the thickening agent & pour into the sauce and bring it to a boil. When fish is steamed, discard the fish juice & pour the hot sauce & garnishing over it.

In a small saucepan combine the orange zest & 90 gm of castor sugar & caramalize over medium fire, stir till it is lightly brown then add in the 150 ml combination of Orange & Lemon juice & water & simmer till this syrup reduces to half its original quantity. Remove from fire then add in the brandy stir same & pour into a bowl ("syrup"). [This step is often referred to as "reduction" when you want to reduce the quantity of the liquid by evaporation which then results in an intense flavour].

Place the egg yolks on a double boiler on medium heat [this is referred to as "bain marie"] & keep on whisking with a whisk & adding the 5 Tabsp Sugar gradually till it is light, fluffy & lemony in colour. Then remove it from the fire & pour the mixture into a mixing bowl & whisk on a Kenwood machine with a whisk till ribbon stage i.e. when you lift the whisk, the batter will dribble like a ribbon. Allow mixture to cool.

Put the 300 ml Whipping Cream in a bowl & whisk on the Kenwood machine until cream is 3/4 stiff probably 3 - 5 minutes ["soft peak"] to know is lift the whisk and if the tip of the whipping cream is bent/curled, it is soft peak, [be careful do not overwhip, otherwise it will be too stiff], add in the Butta Vanilla & fold it gently manually.

Add 6 Tabsp of the syrup i.e. No.1 to the remaining 1/3 Strawberry/Nectarines & mix it then spoon some of this onto cocotail glasses. Then top it with the Semi Freddo Mixture, cover the top of the glassed with a piece of foil & then freeze it overnight.

(a) You can prepare Step 1 ie the Syrup a day earlier, cool it completely, cover it then refrigerate same.

(b) Next day do Steps 2 - 6 & freeze overnight.

(c) Next day take it out from the freezer & put in the chiller & let it "thaw" in the chiller for 2
- 3 hours then when anyone want to eat just take one out and if it has not thawed
properly; just thaw it outside for 10 - 15 minutes, it should have a moussy texture.

(d) I usually like to put it in timbles, cover it with a foil or put them in little tupperware and I love using Nectarines as the aroma from same is Truly unbeatable!!!

(e) When a recipe calls for Oranges and you add some orange liqueur like Grand Marnier or
Cointreau, it takes your dessert up another notch.

(f) A double boiler is usually two small pots inserted together. The bottom pot should
contain the water and the top pot is whatever you are doing. Just like how our grannies
make Seri Kaya.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

One only has to mention seafood, esp Prawns and more than likely, everyone will give a resounding word to describe their favorite Prawn dish and their are so many of them as Prawns are so versatile and just to eat them fried with black pepper & salt is also yummy. Ophelia

Deep fry the prawns for a very short while, cannot overcook. Remove onto plate.

Remove surplus oil just leaving about 2 Tabsp of the oil. Saute the garlic, chili padi then add in the sauce & bring it to a boil on medium fire.

Once it comes to a boil Reduce fire to low medium and add in the pre cooked prawns; stir for 3 minutes. Off the fire then add in the honey [honey burns easily] & a little of the oil that was used to fry the prawns earlier as the oil will give it lustre.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Many of us cannot say enuf about prawns especially fried crispy prawns. When they are fried, they not only smell glorious but they taste good too especially if they are crispy :)

Crispy Fried Prawns

600 gm Medium size prawns

A few tricks I learnt from the Chef:- 1. After removing the shell, make 3 slight slits on the underside of the prawns. This "allow" the prawns to be straight when frying and allows the prawn to appear longer. 2. Retain the shells you can make a great stock with some Miropiox for a Seafood Chowder, Seafood Bisque Pasta. 3. Lastly but certainly not the least, when you want to fry something "prawny" eg some veg, you can fry the shells with the oil to enhance the aroma and taste of your mixed vegetables.

Remove the shell & the head of the prawns but do retain the tails as they add a bit more glamour when you are serving your food for the family, almost like eating at a restaurant. Make a small slit from one end of the prawn to the other, remove the dirt along the slit. Wash & dry them well. Then make 3 small slits on the underside of the prawns. Place the prawns in a bowl. Put the following in a bowl:-

Saturday, February 5, 2011

This was one recipe I learnt more than 10 years ago and it is still fresh in my mind. Ppl always say for something to linger that long in your mind, it must have been good and personally, I was very happy to learn this as I am crazy when it comes to fruits and the riot of colours coming from the assortment of fruits is a sight for sore eyes and the aroma and flavour from the Passion Fruits and the imported Basil leaves, aaah leaves much to be desired. I remember on my last trip to Australia, I brought home some Passion Fruits with this very recipe in mind. I know I can get Passion Fruit in some of the big Supermarket here but somehow the thought of bringing back some fresh from Australia just excites me and then again we can find local Passion Fruits here in Malaysia but the full impact of its aroma & acidity cannot be compared to imported Passion Fruit I bought here nor the ones I brought back from Australia.

This recipe is specially for Esther and for those of you who live overseas where there is an abundance of these fruits and with the adundance the fruits, it definitely would not cost an arm and a leg there and I would urge you to give try this recipe for an ultimate dessert with fruits topped with whipped cream, mango puree & Vanilla sauce :) Ophelia
﻿﻿

﻿﻿

These are local Passion Fruits grown locally in Malaysia but personally I find that to compare same with those that I bought from Australia, the local ones loose out as the full impact of its aroma and acidity is not as powerful. Just as a point of interest, the ones from Australia, the skin are pitch black.

Use a spoon to scope the yellow pulp and the seeds, the seeds are edible and are more often than not, used to decorate the Cream Cheese frosting

(c) Stir the Custard Powder mixture then add it to the (b) above & keep on stirring, on medium low heat, with a whisk till thick making sure there are no lumps. Remove from fire then add in 1/2 teasp Vanilla essence, stir.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

﻿
I learnt this way back in 2001 and this year for CNY eve reunion dinner, I thought, instead of the tedious affair of cooking many Nyonya dishes and with hubby's "consent", I would make these instead and when I learnt them, the Chef didnot included smoked turkey to be fried in the rice but I thought to myself, I would add them for first, more taste in the rice but ultimately, it was for the colour that it would give to the rice. One tip is that for picky children you could do the rice then put them in moulds, turn it onto a platter & I am sure the children would look the "dress up version" of an ordinary lunch/dinner :) Ophelia

As the portion for the Mushroom Rice is small, I could only get 3 moulds of rice as seen in the picture.

Wash the dried black mushrooms then soak them in hot water for 1 hour. Then dice them into little cubes.

Heat the oil & saute the Garlic until light brown. Add in the mushrooms, black pepper & smoked turney. Stir fry for 1 minute then add in the cooked, cooled Rice; mix the rice well before adding the salt. This process is done quickly. Remove onto plate & straight away while it is hot put them in little timbles & press it with a spoon to compress rice [If this is left to cool, it might be more difficult to compress same:) ] & then *turn it over onto plate. Set aside.

Wash & dry the lamb cutlets with paper kitchen towel. Marinate with ground Black Pepper & crush some fresh Thymn to release its oil & place in the cutlets. Cling wrap & let it marinade in the fridge for 2 hours. [Tip: Do not add salt at this stage. Salt is only added just before you want to cook as by adding salt early, alot of juice will ooze out from the meat].

Remove meat from fridge & let it thaw for 40 minutes.

In the meantime cut & wash the vegetables & blanch in hot water short while till it is tender. Remove & immediately place them in ice cold water for 2 minutes, to stop cooking process. Remove & drain on a siever.

In a pot boil the red wine/*chicken stock with shallots & garlic, let this reduce to half [this process is called "Reduction" in cook books] then add in whipping cream, chopped mint leaf, pepper, salt & butter. Check for seasoning. Leave this in the pot till it is needed

Add the salt to the lamb cutlets & mix it well in order to incorporate the salt well into the meat. Pan fry the meat till it is cooked. [This you have to gauge yourself. For me I like to pan fry in some oil then I like to grill it in the oven for a short while. For me, the whole process of pan frying and grilling is approximately 8 minutes as you can over cook as it would then be tough].

To assemble

(a) Warm up the red wine reduction.
(b) Warm up the Mushroom rice in micro oven;
(c) Place a mould of the mushroom rice on a plate;
(d) Arrange the vegetable round the plate; place the cooked lamb by the side of the rice;
(e) Drizzle the red wine reduction on the cooked lamb.

This is specially for my Muslim friends & visitors. To make the chicken stock just put 500 ml of water, 1 chicken carcass, chop the carcass, 2 carrots, 1 rib/stalk of Australian Celery, 1 Big Onion & bring it to a boil then reduce fire to medium low & simmer for 1 - 2 hours. Then use 200 ml of this chicken stock in place of the red wine. Any excess of this stock, do not throw away you can freeze same and for those who are gungho like yours truly here to get an even more flavourful chicken stock, you can place on a tray lined with foil, the chopped carcass, the carrots, celery & big onion & bake it in the oven for 1 hour or slightly more than 1 hour and you can see that some of the veg have charred a bit, then remove from oven & place them all in a pot together with 500 ml of water, bring it to a boil. Once it has boil, reduce the fire to medium low & simmer it for 1 - 2 hours. By baking them in the oven first & then boiling & simmering it, you will find that your chicken stock is more richly coloured & you will be rewarded with a stock ten times more flavourful & more deeply coloured.

About Me

Welcome to my blog. Thanks for visiting me. Hope you enjoyed reading and will appreciate any comments from you.I have, Always, been consumed by a burning desire to be an icon first, in baking and then cooking as I always believe that food is the glue that keeps the family together. It was good that I started learning baking more than 20 years ago to destress for now after retiring more than 6 years ago I am able to go full time in doing what I love best; baking and selling my cakes. Anybody can learn how to bake but genuine interest has to come from the heart and if you want your cakes or food to taste good, You have to bake/cook from the heart.